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The United States has managed to survive the bursting of a giant real estate bubble. Although many are still trying to digest the losses and are struggling with the aftermath, now is the time, before the memories start to fade, to figure out how to prevent the next bubble, not just fight the battles of the last one. One essential part of this task is to add countercyclical factors to credit markets. How could this be done? How can the overoptimistic expansion of debt, leverage, and risk, including debt promoted by the government, as mortgages were, be addressed? Would the financial reform legislation currently before Congress prevent a new bubble? Given the record of repeated overexpansions followed by crises throughout financial history, can the next bubble actually be prevented? These and related issues were addressed by expert panelists: Representative Bill Foster (D-Ill.), member of the House Financial Services Committee; Jay Brinkmann, chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association; AEI visiting scholar John H. Makin; Allan Mendelowitz, former chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Board; and Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com. AEI resident fellow Alex J. Pollock moderated.